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THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
Birds seen or heard were numerous, but no list of those identified has been
handed in to the recorder. Tea was taken soon after 4 o'clock at the Cock
Hotel, Epping, after which a conveniently empty bus accommodated the entire
party for its homeward journey.
Further field-meetings, already being arranged for July, August and September
had reluctantly to be cancelled owing to official war restrictions, and to the new
danger of "flying bombs" and "rockets" over our area. But in October the
usual indoor meetings at Woodford were resumed, and will be reported in our
next issue.
ORIGINAL NOTES.
Senecio squalidus L.—This plant, with its showy heads of yellow flowers
and handsome dark green foliage, appears to be a somewhat recent arrival in
Essex. Its name does not occur in the full Index to the Essex Naturalist 1887
to 1930, prepared by the late Stephen Barns. Though it certainly appeared
sporadically in the county before 1930, it has increased remarkably in the last
few years, especially on waste ground in the suburbs of London. It is an intro-
duced plant in the British Isles, and is not truly indigenous nearer than the South
of France, Italy, Corsica and Sicily. It has been known to grow on old walls
in Oxford since the middle of the Eighteenth Century, and was probably an
escape from the Botanic Gardens there, founded in 1622. It seems to have been
slow in extending its range, for in 1825 Smith's 'English Flora' gives Oxford
as the one British locality for the species. In Sowerby's English Botany, published
in 1866, beside Oxford, Warwickshire and Bideford, Devon, were the only English
places from which it had been recorded In 1926 a specimen of Senecio squalidus
gathered on waste ground near Barking was brought to the Essex Museum by
Mr. Willis, and is preserved in the herbarium of our Club. As far as I know
this is the first Essex specimen of which we have a record. It has been known
for some years on waste ground at West Ham and Forest Gate, in the Wanstead
Park district and at Loughton. At the present time (November 1944), it is
very plentiful along the roadside in Overton Drive, Leytonstone. It would be
interesting to know how far the species has spread throughout the County.
G. Lister.
Fallow Deer at Parndon.—We have had one or two fallow-deer here this
summer (1944) : they are accustomed to leave the Forest in summer, but I have
never known them to travel so far before. G. Dent.
Bird Notes.—Nightjars nested at Parndon this year. In the valleys of the
Lea and Stort, drainage and river cleaning have banished our nesting Redshanks
and most of the snipe and reed-buntings. G. Dent.
OBITUARY.
Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, F.R.S.
Yet another of our more prominent members has joined the majority. Sir
Arthur Smith Woodward died on September 2nd, 1944, at age 80 years.
Here is no place to speak of the life-work of this great palaeontologist, whose
writings on fossil vertebrates—particularly fishes—are of world-wide authority,
or of his masterly reconstruction from detached fragments of the Piltdown skull,
found in 1912, which yielded such great new light on early man. Sir Arthur was
President of our Club from 1923 to 1925 and it was during his term of office that
he received, in 1924, the honour of knighthood from King George V.
During the last two years of his life Sir Arthur was afflicted by cataract and
the resultant blindness made it necessary for Lady Woodward to act as his
amanuensis : but notwithstanding this terrible drawback, his acute interest in
and contributions to scientific literature were undiminished to the end. His latest
work, still in manuscript, is a book on "The Earliest Englishmen" ; it is to be
hoped that this will see the light of early publication.